MACBETH to Open 6/29 at Colorado Shakespeare Festival

After opening with two comedic gems, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival turns to the dark side on June 29 with the brooding, bloody classic, "Macbeth," set amid the tortured deserts of Soviet-occupied Afghanistan.

"I decided to reference this production to pre-Taliban Afghanistan because it evokes a world that is at once exotic, dangerous, familiar and unknown," says director Jane Page, who helmed CSF's 2009 critical and popular hit, "To Kill a Mockingbird." "But it's also a world with which we have a modern connection."

The production features English actor Nigel Gore in the title role. His 2012 CSF performance as another of Shakespeare's bloody monarchs, Richard III, earned him the award for Best Actor in a Shakespeare Production from Westword magazine.

"He inhabits Shakespeare's villainous protagonist with strutting self-regard," the Denver Post wrote of his turn as Richard III. The New York Times says, "Mr. Gore's facial expressions, vocal timbers and stances turn out to provide all the scenery you need."